Comment by unsupp0rted
6 hours ago
Only 79… far from a complete human experience. It’s incredibly sad how little time we get here, especially the best of us.
6 hours ago
Only 79… far from a complete human experience. It’s incredibly sad how little time we get here, especially the best of us.
I'd MUCH rather consider the completeness of my experience based on what I was able to experience, rather than how long I'd lived for.
Sorry for the tangent, but this is a pet peeve of mine. From my perspective, it seems like our modern quest for safety in all things has the effect of wrapping the whole world, and ourselves, in bubble wrap. The goal seems to be to extend that number as far as possible, without regard to how the life that we experience during that period is diminished by all the safeguards.
It bothers me that we've made it a mantra, telling each other "have a safe trip", or "be safe", and so on. I can't remember anyone saying "have the richest experience you can manage".
The longer your lifespan, the more chances you have to waste chunks of it in a rut of zero experience, but have time to work your way out of it.
At just 60 ~ 90 years, a rut of a single decade can take up > 15% of your lifespan.
This is just a tragic way to view the world, on so may levels: 79 is a great run for anybody. And more importantly, Craig Venter did more in 79 years than most people could do in two or three lifetimes. Lastly, of course, life is literally the longest thing you will ever experience, regardless of how long it lasts.
I learned a lot about Craig Venter after reading My Life Decoded in college. Truly an amazing person.
>79 is a great run for anybody
Average life expectancy for males in the US is 76.5 years. During the pandemic it dipped below 74. So he was definitely already on the lucky side of the distribution. He also famously once said: "If you want immortality, do something meaningful with your life."
> Only 79… far from a complete human experience
It seems you’re judging his life solely on the age when he died rather than all the things he did.
I think he’s really just trying to spur your imagination into imagining if someone like that had lived longer.
Anyway, this conversation has been had repeatedly. Many people seem to be unable to imagine that positive benefit of much longer lives.
Suppose that’s why “Science advances one funeral at a time.”
Imagine what a guy like that could do with 79 more years... or 10x of that.
It's not that outlandish: sharks, turtles, etc get far more years than we do.
It's shocking all billionaires aren't devoting all their resources to solving this cosmic crime against humanity.
I know it's cliche, but if he knew he (any of us) knew we might live to 790, would we live life so fully?
I kind of think that's what is behind some people versus others—those that have an intrinsic, constant sense of the brevity of life are the ones that try to experience life to the fullest.
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A complete human experience is to have relatively little time, no point in doing anything if you have 500 years to do it IMO.
Edit: Maybe there wouldn't be nilihism, but I don't think you could get more fulfilled with the extra time. I feel like an insect that lives 24 hours and a shark that lives several hundred have an equal feeling of accomplishment.
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I recognize and appreciate that you likely believe your contribution is one of optimism, but respectfully, I feel ill reading things like this.
Ever heard of Chesterton's fence? I don't believe we are more clever than our mother, the computational machinery of the universe. If we remove death, there will be great consequence.
Heck, it's arguable that the slow decline and death spiral we're in on this planet (empathatically NOT just human well-being metrics here), that this is already due to pushing death back, and systematically allowing power/opportunity to accumulate ever more deeply at scale of the selfish individual...
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Looking at his life. This is as complete human experience as we can hope to get.
What is sad is having a world view where the value of a human life is duration, not accomplishment.